Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
Cell Stem Cell. 2013 Mar 7;12(3):342-53. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2012.12.015.
Human astrocytes are larger and more complex than those of infraprimate mammals, suggesting that their role in neural processing has expanded with evolution. To assess the cell-autonomous and species-selective properties of human glia, we engrafted human glial progenitor cells (GPCs) into neonatal immunodeficient mice. Upon maturation, the recipient brains exhibited large numbers and high proportions of both human glial progenitors and astrocytes. The engrafted human glia were gap-junction-coupled to host astroglia, yet retained the size and pleomorphism of hominid astroglia, and propagated Ca2+ signals 3-fold faster than their hosts. Long-term potentiation (LTP) was sharply enhanced in the human glial chimeric mice, as was their learning, as assessed by Barnes maze navigation, object-location memory, and both contextual and tone fear conditioning. Mice allografted with murine GPCs showed no enhancement of either LTP or learning. These findings indicate that human glia differentially enhance both activity-dependent plasticity and learning in mice.
人类星形胶质细胞比灵长类以下哺乳动物的星形胶质细胞更大、更复杂，这表明它们在神经处理中的作用随着进化而扩大。为了评估人类神经胶质的细胞自主性和种属选择性，我们将人类神经胶质祖细胞（GPC）移植到新生免疫缺陷小鼠体内。在成熟后，受者大脑中出现了大量的人类神经胶质祖细胞和星形胶质细胞，且比例很高。移植的人类神经胶质与宿主星形胶质细胞之间存在缝隙连接，但保留了人类星形胶质细胞的大小和多形性，并且钙信号传播速度比宿主快 3 倍。在人类神经胶质嵌合小鼠中，长时程增强（LTP）明显增强，学习能力也得到增强，通过 Barnes 迷宫导航、物体位置记忆以及上下文和音调恐惧条件反射来评估。同种异体移植小鼠的 GPC 没有增强 LTP 或学习能力。这些发现表明，人类神经胶质细胞可不同程度地增强小鼠的活动依赖性可塑性和学习能力。
